It's All Downhill from Here by P.J. Night Page B

place to turn into a ski resort. This looks wonderful. It’s such a pretty location.”
    â€œWe weren’t supposed to arrive until noon, but we’re just so excited,” the husband added.
    Mr. Kim debated with himself about whether to warn this family about the house. What would he say? Would he tell them not to buy the place because it was haunted by a ghost? They’d think he was crazy. Just like he had thought his daughter was crazy.
    â€œGood luck,” he simply said, and then he rolled up his window.
    As the two cars passed each other, Maggie locked eyes with one of the little boys. She shook her head, hoping to send a message. The boy turned away and started fighting with his brother.
    As Mr. Kim started to turn out of the driveway, Maggie turned back for one last look at the mansion.There, in the same window where she had seen him on the night they arrived, was the ghost of Old Man Wharton. He caught Maggie’s eye and smiled, raising his hand to wave good-bye. She wondered if he was sorry for putting her family through such an ordeal this weekend. She wondered if he felt that he did what he had to do in order to keep others safe.
    And then he noticed the other car moving up the driveway, approaching the house. His smile morphed into an angry scowl, and he turned from the window to prepare for his new guests.



Prologue
    Mr. Talbert yawned as he tried to hold a stack of uncorrected lab papers
     and his coffee cup in one hand and unlock his classroom door with the other. Feeble
     early-morning light filtered through the high windows and reflected off the surfaces of
     the lab tables. He flicked on the overhead, flooding the room with harsh fluorescent
     light. He yawned again as he headed for his desk, wondering if he’d have time this
     Friday morning to finish grading all the labs before first period.
    He plopped the stack of papers down on his desk. Then he scratched his
     head quizzically and regarded the life-size skeleton next to his desk. The
     skeleton’s head was cocked at a jaunty angle. It stared back at him with its
     shadowy, unseeing eyes.
    â€œDid I just see what I think I saw?” he
     asked the skeleton.
    The skeleton didn’t answer.
    Mr. Talbert took three backward steps. He turned toward the bug terrarium
     that sat on the counter running the length of his classroom. The counter was cluttered
     with mineral samples, animal skulls, and fossils.
    The lid of the terrarium was askew. He crouched down to peer into it.
    The day before it had contained a bustling little ecosystem, filled with
     at least a dozen large green scarab beetles, scientific name Chelorrhina polyphemus , crawling around on the sandy bottom and gnawing on
     the bits of apple his middle school students had dropped in. But now the terrarium was
     empty. The beetles were nowhere to be seen.
    Mr. Talbert turned back to the skeleton. “They can’t have
     climbed out on their own,” he said. “Someone’s taken them!”
    The skeleton didn’t answer.

Chapter 1
    â€œUm, Jess? No offense, but that hat?” Alice mock-shuddered.
     “ So last year.”
    Jess reached up and touched her hat, smiling ruefully at Alice. “I
     know, I know. But it was so cold this morning when I ran out of the house, and I left my
     good one in my locker at school.”
    â€œI always buy two of everything,” pronounced Pria. “That
     way I have a spare.”
    Kayla, who was picking her way along the icy sidewalk a step behind the
     other three girls, furrowed her brow. She liked Jess’s
     hat. It was a dusty rose color with a folded-up brim that set off Jess’s delicate
     features and wide-set green eyes. But Kayla would never dream of piping up and
     disagreeing with Alice. No one wanted toinvite Alice’s
     criticism if they could help it. Kayla wondered if Pria was serious about buying two of
     everything. Like that would ever happen in Kayla’s
     house.